22 Feb 2021 14:58:55
What would people's view be on naming rights for the stadium for a set period of say 5 years but the money had to go improving the stadium and transfers only not in the Glazers pocket. Yes I know it would be a pipe dream to even think they wouldn't pocket any money.


1.) 22 Feb 2021
22 Feb 2021 15:11:40
SAUDI ARAMCO ARENA. Has a decent ring to it lol.


2.) 22 Feb 2021
22 Feb 2021 16:36:12
No. Just no!
The Glazers, whilst I detest them, have made plenty of money available for transfers. The money hasn’t been well spent by the right people.


3.) 22 Feb 2021
22 Feb 2021 16:37:30
Not for me, Football needs to find a better balance between making money and keeping its soul.

The Glazers own Manchester United, ultimately it is their responsibility and really in their best interest to maintain the quality of their asset. So should be paying to maintain and improve the stadium.

The have found over a billion pounds for transfer fees and gods knows how much for wages and agents fees over the past 8 years. Fixing the stadium would cost a fraction of that.


4.) 22 Feb 2021
22 Feb 2021 18:37:50
No - I hate these ‘branded’ stadiums.


5.) 22 Feb 2021
22 Feb 2021 18:50:54
the stadium needs serious investment. i'm not in favour of using a sponsored name. But someone has to pay so it will come at the cost of squad investment primarily. More long finger stuff from the owners when it comes to club infrastructure.


6.) 22 Feb 2021
22 Feb 2021 23:19:09
As mentioned above the Glazers have spent plenty funding player acquisitions. Not their fault so much was wasted by people they trusted to have a superior football knowledge to their own. They don't deserve such opprobrium.

If at all possible I would prefer there not to be ground naming rights but of it meant it resultes in a better aquas which consistently won titles then so be it.

{Ed0666's Note - I’m with you I think the Glazers are treated unfairly. What more can they do? They have dished out gazzilions season after season players yet they still get bashed. I don’t get it. By the way I loved the word OPPROBRIUM.


7.) 23 Feb 2021
23 Feb 2021 00:33:48
Has anyone put our name down for the next council house that comes available in Manchester?


8.) 23 Feb 2021
23 Feb 2021 06:33:37
The Glazers have spent the square root of sod all on anything, players or ground. They have put absolutely no money into the club themselves, so let’s stop this acceptance of their ownership.

They take their rightful dividends and whilst I haven’t reviewed accounts recently I believe there used to be consultancy fees as well.

They have saddled the club with hundreds of millions of debt that has done nothing at all for the club and the cost of such debt is well over a billion pounds since their takeover.

The ground is in need of update but don’t expect too much of that at all. It will be harder to justify their dividends in a financial mess so naming rights to get money in may well suit them to ensure continued dividends. It honestly made me sick to see our manager praise them the other day.

The Glazers have never spent a penny of their own money not the “gazillions” mentioned.


9.) 23 Feb 2021
23 Feb 2021 08:27:57
Nobody can argue with the money spent on improving the squad, we’ve seen millions upon millions on player transfers and wages.

That money has been almost entirely wasted. The people in charge of where the pounds are spent are truly clueless and we see the same mistakes window to window, chasing what we can’t have and then over spending on 4th, 5th and 6th choice.

So yes we’ve absolutely had investment. We’ve spent just about as much as anyone else.

But I don’t feel sorry for the Glazers one bit. They might not make the decisions as to who we sign and who we renew, but they do employ the people making those decisions. They have the power to make personnel changes but it seems they’re happy with our current setup and until that changes we’ll have to continue to put up with the amateurs.


10.) 23 Feb 2021
23 Feb 2021 09:41:41
When the City owners were putting a billion pound into their club over the course of a decade, we were spending a billion pound paying interest on a loan that has only been partially paid off.

This was when £30 million got you Aguero, Silva. Now £30 million gets you Diallo.

Watching Fergie say "There's no value in the market" is akin your father saying "We're not getting McDonalds, we have burgers at home".

Not for one instance saying we havnt spent money, but a billion pound in football, especially from the mid 2000s to now, could have made us the into the biggest club in the world.

There's plenty of money in football now. We're not at the top table anymore but we pretend we are, and that's all that matters.


11.) 23 Feb 2021
23 Feb 2021 11:04:15
Personally I don't have anything against getting money this way, Esp if it is used to refurbish OT. It will always be known to us as old trafford a bit like st. james and sports direct. Names like Amazon Field and Microsoft Stadium (LOL) won't bother me knowing it will eventually revert to OT.


12.) 23 Feb 2021
23 Feb 2021 11:47:47
If Old Trafford is to be refurbished then I think it only fair that there is a consultation process with the fans. My feeling for a while is that the way the parts and sections of the ground is marketed are like the sections of an aircraft. There is a premium experience with executive boxes and top cuisine and then match day experiences and finally the bulk of fans who bring in the majority of the matchday income are given sub-standard access (often crowded entrances and stairways) and exorbitant prices for refreshment and poor toilet areas.
Is this the way to reward loyalty. No wonder a lot of fans don't go regularly anymore.


13.) 23 Feb 2021
23 Feb 2021 11:54:41
and yet they do nothing about the clowns wasting the money.


14.) 23 Feb 2021
23 Feb 2021 11:49:53
maybe change this part of the website to the Utd Persiflage Page.


15.) 23 Feb 2021
23 Feb 2021 13:36:28
spot on dazw.


16.) 23 Feb 2021
23 Feb 2021 13:46:30
Redman. They own the club. Every penny spent is out of their pockets because if its not spent they would be entitled to take it.
Why should they put their own personal money into it.
The 2 lads that just bought asda have put none of their personal money in. Why should they?
Nothing wrong with the debt levels at United at all. Very serviceable and in great proportions to turnover.
Why should they spend their own cash? Very few owners of business that size in any sphere find company expenditure from their own pocket.


17.) 23 Feb 2021
23 Feb 2021 14:32:50
Ken, you make fair points, but the counter argument is that because of how they bought the club, they have used club generated funds to service a debt they loaded onto the club. Very clever, very astute, but ultimately it has taken a phenomenal amount of money out of the club and into the hands of the banks. Money that could have been spent on players, OT, better training facilities, or God forbid, lower ticket prices.


18.) 23 Feb 2021
23 Feb 2021 15:20:27
Tony, when we say about the huge amount of money that goes out to service the loan, there tends to be a general assumption that if the debt wasn't there then that cash would be spent on the club and not just leaving in dividends to the owners.

The truth is very few clubs since 2013 have out spent us world wide. The problem isn't a lack of spending, but a lack of leadership and direction at board level at our club.

I agree that for a period of time the debt certainly adversely impacted our ability to spend. Back between 2006-2013 the debt meant we couldn't keep up with the spending of new cash rich clubs such as PSG and City. Especially during the global economic crash we had to tighten our belts, and Sir Alex had to come out and say there was no value in the transfer market. Simply put during such financially unstable times we couldn't afford to get in to bidding wars with clubs that had bottomless pits of cash, and would always be able to throw an extra 5m on top of any fee we offered and an extra 20k a week for wages.

However since 2013 when the financial situation was more stable and the club had go the debt under control I doubt there are many if any side that has out spent us.

I fail to see how the Glazers are to blame for Di Maria flopping, or Sanchez, or the club massively overspending on players like Pogba, Lukaku and Maguire, all of whom were really only worth about half of what we paid for them at most.

Our poor defence isn't through a lack of spending, AWB 50m, Dalot 20m, Lindelof 32m, Rojo 16m, Bailly 35m, Maguire 80m, Shaw 30m, Alex Telles 16m. That's the best part of 280m worth of defenders. We spent Rolls Royce money on a fleet of Skoda's. That isn't due to a lack of funds but a lack of understanding and direction from the board.

With roughly 300m spent on midfielders (Schneiderlin, Blind, Schweinstieger, Herrera, Fellaini, Fred, Donny and Pogba) it isn't a lack of spending that has caused McFred to be our best midfield pairing, but quite simply poor recruitment.

Same thing when people are crying out for 120m to be spent on Sancho or Haaland, saying we need quality forwards. Well we spent 320m on Mata, Di Maria, Falcao, Depay, Martial, Mkhitaryan, Ibrahimovic, Lukaku, Sanchez and James.

Those figures are just what we have spent on transfer fees and don't take into consideration agents fees, wages or the increase in wages and agents fees paid when renegotiating player contracts.

Over 1 billion in transfer fees and at least 500m on wages and agents fees over a 8 year period should be more than sufficient to be a top side challenging for major honours on all fronts. Many of our rivals are doing so on much less than we spent and was in a far poorer position than we were 8 years ago in terms of quality of squad.

We are where we are not due to a lack of spending, as quite clearly there has been plenty of spending. No we are where we are due to an incompetence at board level, people unwilling to let go of power, but without the needed skills or knowledge to wield that power. No clear vision or direction, rudderless and completely devoid of knowhow. We have Woodward boasting how much money we have then looking bemused when clubs expect us to pay top dollar for their players.

Total inadequacy, incompetence, and shameless power grabbing by utter armatures.

The only thing we can blame the Glazers for is not sacking the lot of them and bringing in people who know what they are doing.

{Ed0666's Note - who the fook are you? Whoever you are mate you deserve a medal post of the day! And the grammar police said you couldn’t use paragraphs.


19.) 23 Feb 2021
23 Feb 2021 15:33:44
Shaps, the only thing I am blaming them for is using the club's own money to buy the club and service the debt.

Who knows what else the money would have been used for but we would have been able to outbid pretty much everybody for any player.

{Ed077's Note - which we have done in almost every case. We have very rarely been outbid for any player who was willing to come to us.}


20.) 23 Feb 2021
23 Feb 2021 17:00:42
Spot on Mumbles. the amount of players Fergie missed out on was terrible. Either that of the scouting system was non existent.


21.) 23 Feb 2021
23 Feb 2021 17:44:52
Simo, I think the difference is that Fergie didn't need to by Di Maria, Falcao, Schweinsteiger, Pogba, Sanchez and Ibrahimovic. We didn't get Ronaldinho so we got Ronaldo and so on.

I think we've over-spent as a way to compensate for not having the best manager since post-Ferguson. It could be that the amateurs approach was to bring in the biggest names and they'll win us the league.

With Fergie we had a manager capable of relating to players and recruiting players based on their personalities and potential. Left field signing became legends because of mentality.

We've not had that since Fergie retired. Moyes wasn't up to it, LVG and Mourinho are dinosaurs of the game and Ole is Ole.

From the outside it looks like we've tried to assemble the Harlem Globetrotters with a who's who of A1 football names based on their FIFA rating. A clear change in strategy in an attempt to buy our way back to the top as we no longer have one of the greatest managers of all time.

The reality now is that some of our best players are from the academy and those A1 names we signed during the past 8 years are nothing but journeymen, with none of them contributing much at all to the club.

We may as well have driven up and down the M56 in an Alfa Romeo throwing £50 notes out of the window, and written a few seasons off to play the kids.
We'd still have none of those journeymen with us now (bar Pogba) and there'd be a few less homeless in Warrington, and we wouldn't be scratching our head wondering how in hell some people are still in a job.

{Ed077's Note - For every Cristiano Ronaldo you will find a Ruud van Nistelrooy or Juan Sebastian Veron. Every Vidic will have Rio Ferdinand on the other side of the spectrum. SAF was a great great manager but lets not try to re-write history and pretend like Fergie never signed players for big bucks. Granted our recruitement has been poor as a whole but Man Utd did have some stinkers under Fergie too. SAF would no doubt do better with the players at the club have but some of the issue that Man Utd have had to deal with after his departure were there when he was still around.


22.) 23 Feb 2021
23 Feb 2021 17:51:31
Ed, I’m thinking back to SAF’s no value in the market comments, there was a long time when we didn’t seem to want to compete. Moyes and LVG both said they didn’t get the o, Ayers they wanted and there are rumours that Ole finds himself i the same boat.

Of course, this could be down to sheet incompetence as opposed to funds.

{Ed077's Note - Didnt Moyes pull the plug on the deals the club had arranged before his arrival like the likes of Thiago? Its hard to abandon the deals that were near completion and then go after other players, who didnt want to leave their clubs and werent necessarily up for sale at that point on time.

LVG got Blind, Depay, Rojo, Romero, Valdes(?), Di Maria among others. No manager or club gets all the first choice players they targeted.

The homegrown/english player policy is largely down to Ole or so they make out. I am pretty certain Maguire was an Ole signing or else he wouldnt have been made club captain within 6 months and AWB was an Ole signing. Dan James was signed because Ole wanted him after Giggs' recommendation.

The club could do more to back the manager, to improve the club but they have gone someway in backing the managers they appointed. Jose is the one guy that seemed to lose confidence and support from the board so soon


23.) 23 Feb 2021
23 Feb 2021 21:21:30
Ken

The Glazers own the club. Every penny spent is out of Uniteds pockets not theirs and that is how it works.

If you want to talk about debt, then gearing can be good for a business, yet it is how the money is used that matters, what it does for the business. The debt foisted on United has done absolutely nothing for the club, except massively increase costs to service it. It is not being paid off just serviced.

The fact is that the amount of those loans and the cost didn’t benefit the club means the gearing is not comparable to other debt in most businesses, so that whilst it may be serviceable and it may be proportional to other financial numbers, it really does not portray a figure that can be compared with most other geared positions.

You say very few owners of business that size in any sphere find company expenditure from their own pocket. Ok, what about Chelsea and City?

They don’t have to pay out of their own pocket because it’s the clubs income that costs come out of. They take more money out in dividends. Where oh where could we have been if the owner had been Chelsea or City’s. It is a crying shame what has gone on, over a Billion that could have been spent on infrastructure on the team. Madrid are spending 500m on the stadium, we have wasted probably three times that.


24.) 23 Feb 2021
23 Feb 2021 22:06:23
Ffp now limits what aowner can spend .
We have over the last 5 year spent a significant amount on transfer .
Up there with the most in world football.
The glazers took over in 2003 a lot has changed since then.


25.) 24 Feb 2021
23 Feb 2021 23:53:01
Redman. They own the business. You say its the club that has generated the income but they own the club so it is their income generated by the business they own.
What was the value of the club when they bought it?
What is the value now,?
The debt and service of those loans make sound business sense and is good practise given the value of the asset.
Yes there are a lot more preferable ways the club could be run from many a perspective. However from their point of view its been a financial masterclass from day 1 and could be the first chapter in ' how to make billions' their objective from buying the club was to make money and they have done a might good job of that.
Looking at it from a fans point of view I don't envy any of our opposition for their owners investment.
I admire how some of them appear to be managed. I admire and would covet many of their non playing staff more than their playing staff. Both football and non football related.
Over a billion spent on players. The highest wage bill in the country. The biggest squad. Huge investment in youth players.
A lot of money spent badly. But big investments made.
As much as our executives have performed poorly on the football side of the football people at the club have performed worse than them for the past 8 years.
3 failed coaches plus ole, 4 dozen of dozen players, many 'top class internationals' between them, have not been able to build a cohesive successful league challenging side. Now that is failure on a massive scale. Despite spending that billion reinvested into the company by its owners. Straight out of their own pockets because they own the club and the profits it generates. You may not like it but that's the truth.
Would I rather our owners took less and reinvested more money into the facilities? Yes for sure. Do i think they should expect a better return for their recent billion pound investment in the playing squad? yes I do.
Do I think they could do more for the fans? Yes
Am I worried any the debt? No? Why? Because any perspective buyer will put a whole lot more debt into the club than there is now.


26.) 24 Feb 2021
24 Feb 2021 06:33:34
Ken,

The debt and service of those loans does not make sound business sense and is not “good practice” and I will explain again.

I could put a full financial explanation on gearing and the importance of it to a business but I won’t bore everyone. Keeping it simple i repeat it’s what the debt was used for and that is what makes gearing important. The debt and the costs of the debt have had no benefit to the business.

Asset value of the club does not help us and only makes the owners money when they sell.

I would ban leveraged buyouts in football, therefore anyone who bought us could not do what the Glazers have done.


27.) 24 Feb 2021
24 Feb 2021 09:29:44
Red Man, while you might like to ban leveraged buy outs in football that sadly isn't going to happen.

There are only a few individuals world wide with deep enough pockets to buy our club outright. Do any of them have the motivation to do so? I doubt it. Football clubs are notorious for leaking money and costing huge amounts to run.

While you talk about the dividends the Glazers take out it amounts to around 100m a season. How many years would it take a new owner to make back their original investment in buying our club? We are valued at what 3-4bn? With Dividends of 100m a year it would take 30 years to make that back. So it doesn't make financial sense to sink 3-4bn of your own money into the club unless you were either looking at family institutional ownership, or unless you had a bad profile and needed to use the club's fan base and footballs world wide appeal to improve your own image.

So any new owners would either be a dodgy individual using us a shield, or another leveraged buyout lumping more debt on the club.

I think we need to accept that the Glazers are here to stay, and that actually on the whole especially the last 8 years they have made more than enough money available for us to challenge and compete. The fact we haven't is due to the poor running of the club by the board.